


knife games (and why you shouldn't play those kinds of games)

by whichlights



Series: games [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Autistic Loki (Marvel), Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Knives, Loki (Marvel)-centric, Other, Sakaar (Marvel), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), also if ur here for frostmaster its /there/ but its not like suuuper the focus, dont mind me im just gonna.... leave this here......., the grandmaster fucks up a lot and apologizes just as much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 17:58:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13575927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichlights/pseuds/whichlights
Summary: Loki's knives are taken from him while he's on Sakaar. He wants them back.





	knife games (and why you shouldn't play those kinds of games)

Loki was dragged yelling and screaming into the throne room. 

“Let go of me,” he snarled, kicking out his legs. “Let  _ go _ !”

The guards dragging him forward ignored him. They simply dragged him in front of a man on a throne and forced him to his knees. 

“Caught him trying to sneak in, Grandmaster,” the guard on Loki’s left said. 

The man on the throne leaned forward with a grin. His eyes were wide and his smile was bright. Loki hissed at him. 

“What do you want to do with him?” The guard asked. 

“Hm… What’s, what’s your, ah, name,” the Grandmaster asked, looking directly at Loki. 

“Leave me alone,” Loki spit. He tried to get his arms free again. “You and your entire trash planet- fuck all of this!”

“Oooh. You’re new, aren’t you, hm?” The Grandmaster hummed. 

Loki slumped down, relaxing his muscles. The guards fell for the trick, because their grip on him loosened. With a flick of his wrists, his knives were in his hands, and he stood up, grabbing the guard on the left and holding one knife to his neck, pointing the other at the Grandmaster. “Let me leave,” Loki said. 

The Grandmaster’s eyes widened. The woman on his left was tense, looking to him for some kind of direction, but the Grandmaster was laughing at Loki. “Oh, oh! Oh, wow, you-you’re a fighter!”

“I’m a  _ survivor _ ,” Loki corrected. “I’m not food, and I won’t fight for sport.”

“Mkay. Why were you, ah, trying to sneak in, hm?”

“Steal a ship, and go back home,” Loki said, as if he had a home to go back to. 

“Uh, this is you-your home now, don’t you get it, yah? Sakaar is where the, ah, unwanted go, the unloved, hm. You don’t-don’t  _ have  _ a home.”

Loki’s blood went a little cold at that. The Grandmaster kept talking. “Aw, Don’t worry, it’s just-just  _ wonderful _ here, ah, and-“

The guard without a knife pointed at his neck grabbed Loki’s arm. His knife clattered to the ground as his arm was twisted around. Loki gasped in pain, and made a noise of dismay when his other knife was ripped out of his grip. 

“Now, hm. Where do we, uh, put you?” The Grandmaster mused. “You in the-the arena- no, I don’t think so. How about we get you a, ah, room up in the palace, you can be our guest! Won’t that be fun!”

_ Just a prettier cage _ , Loki thought, not tearing his eyes away from his knives as the guard handed them to the Grandmaster. “Be careful with those,” Loki blurted. 

The Grandmaster gave him an appraising look. “I will,” he said. “Topaz, will you, uh, put these somewhere safe, hm?”

Loki was apparently no longer wanted in the throne room, because he was dragged away. He didn’t fight, but he didn’t help the guards any as they dragged him to a room somewhere else in the palace. 

They didn’t throw Loki in, but they might as well have. They closed the door behind him, and he didn’t even have to try it to know it was locked. He walked to the wide window, looking down at the city below. 

It was locked too, and unbreakable. Loki broke his arm trying to break through. With a spat out magic spell, he healed it. 

He tried the door out of desperation. It was locked. 

Loki reached for his knives, and then he remembered. 

Loki kicked the wall and screamed. He banged his head against the wall and cried out wordlessly, and just kept kicking the wall and banging on the door. He practically killed his voice, screaming until he was rasping, and he slumped against the wall once he was done kicking it. 

Then he started to cry. 

\---

Loki heard a banging on his door the next day, and he screamed “go  _ away _ !”

The door opened. The Grandmaster walked in. “Hey, hi, I’m s-sorry, I just realized- wow, this is rather… prisonery.”

“Leave me alone,” Loki said, not even attempting to be aggressive anymore. He was just tired. 

“Do you, uh, want to get some lunch?”

“I want my knives,” Loki mumbled. 

“Well, you see, uh, why you can’t have those, right?”

“Yeah,” Loki sighed. “Sure. Whatever. Lunch. Yay.”

“I’m, uh… look, I’m very sorry about, about how yesterday went. That was cruel to you.”

“You think?” Loki snapped. 

“Can I just, just come on, take you to lunch? To, um, say sorry?”

Loki frowned at him. “Do I have a choice?”

“Yes! Of course!”

“No, I don’t.”

“The only thing that-that happens if you don’t get lunch with me is you don’t each lunch _with_ _me_. You can still eat, ah, your door will be unlocked from now on, hell, you can-can do practically whatever,” the Grandmaster said, a little desperately. “I don’t want to make you do anything you, uh, feel you have to.”

“Then I’m staying here,” Loki said, sitting on his bed. “You can go now.”

The Grandmaster smiled. “Ah. Alright.”

He left, and Loki sulked for a few more minutes before poking his head out into the hallway. He was terrible at telling if he was hungry, but he needed to keep his strength up, and he wanted to scope out what the palace looked like. 

Loki looked around, refusing any kind of directions. He wanted to figure this place out on his own. He found a place for food, and grabbed a piece of bread, munching on it as he looked around. 

He came to a locked door. He frowned, and touched it. A guard rounded the corner. “Step away from that,” he said, hand going to his spear. 

Loki sighed. “Let me guess. Back to the room?”

“Just get away from there.”

“Alright,” Loki said, holding up his hands. He made a mental note as he walked away:  _ get lock picks _ .

\---

Loki spent the next week sucking up to the Grandmaster, all smiles and witty quips. The Grandmaster seemed happy about it. That was enough for Loki. Enough to get the Grandmaster focused on Loki, not what she was doing.

Loki also spent the entire week figuring out what was behind the locked door. It was the weapons room. She got lock picks, memorized the guards’ schedules, and planned. So much planning. 

So today she woke up, and she smiled. The moment she’d been waiting for: when she could shift into a form no one here would recognize, but wouldn’t turn into a dysphoric mess by doing it. She tied her hair back, and smirked at her reflection in the mirror. 

Loki grabbed her lock picks and went to the door to the weapons room. She had two minutes before a guard walked by. Humming, she picked the lock and opened the door. 

The room was well lit, with weapons of every kind on the walls. Not in any particular place of honor were her daggers, in between a mace and a sword. She scanned for magic traps or just plain traps, and didn’t find any. 

Loki snatched her daggers off the wall, and started to go back outside. The Grandmaster was waiting for her, leaning against the doorframe. 

Loki balked, stumbling back, and the Grandmaster’s bodyguard, Topaz, grabbed her arms, holding them behind her. How had she snuck up on Loki? How had she  _ missed  _ that?

Loki looked at the Grandmaster, and his small smile, and knew. Topaz handed him Loki’s knives, and he was analyzing them with a gleeful smile. Loki’s limbs froze up, and her brain provided her with images of past tortures, arms bound and her own knives used against her, and she begged, “no, no please, don’t hurt me, please-”

The Grandmaster looked appalled. “Why would I  _ do  _ that?”

Loki remembered all the times Thanos had that smirk, and the one time he actually did use those knives as he had always promised. Just to show he  _ meant  _ his threats. He’d done that to her for a lot less than taking a knife. Loki gulped, holding back her tremble. “I… I took them.”

The Grandmaster laughed a little, lightly. “You really think I-I didn’t know what you were doing? The, uh, lock picks, mapping out the-the guards! And suddenly being nice to me? I knew you had a-a game from the beginning.” The Grandmaster gestured to her. “ _This_ , uh, was a surprise, though.”

“You… You think this is funny.” she realized. 

The Grandmaster shrugged. 

Loki grit her teeth together and tried to punch him, but Topaz held her arms back securely. “I’m not a  _ toy _ !” Loki yelled. “I’m not something for you to watch and laugh at! I’m not some- some pet, or oddity!”

“Of course not, of course not,” the Grandmaster said quickly. He looked taken aback. “I think you’re interesting. Mysterious. Like a, uh, puzzle.”

“And it’s not your  _ right  _ to  _ solve _ me!” Loki screamed. 

The Grandmaster blinked like she’d given him something to consider. “Let her go, Topaz,” the Grandmaster said. 

Loki jerked her arms away from Topaz, and stalked away. 

“Hey, your knives-“ the Grandmaster started. 

“Keep them,” Loki said, furiously wiping away tears. 

\---

Loki sat in her room, hugging her knees to her chest when there was a knock. 

“Can I come in?” The Grandmaster asked. 

Loki got up and opened the door. “What do you want?” She demanded. 

The Grandmaster offered up her knives. “These, uh, they belong to you.”

Loki gave him a hesitant look, not reaching for the daggers so they couldn’t be ripped away from her. “Are you being serious? I can have them?”

“Of course. I’m,ah, sorry for putting you through so much to-to get them.”

Loki grabbed the knives out of his hand and slid them back into the sheathes on her arms, where they belonged. The familiar weight was comforting. 

“I… I don’t know what to say! I don’t want to, uh, say the wrong thing. I really want you to not, ya know, despise me.”

Loki sighed. “They were given to me a long time ago by… someone very important to me,” she said, picking at her hands. 

“I’m, uh, sorry for-for taking them,” the Grandmaster said again. 

“Just don’t do it again,” Loki whispered. 

“Can I, uh, can I sit down?”

“Whatever,” Loki shrugged. 

The Grandmaster sat down next to her. “You know, I, uh, I really like you.”

“Then why’d you take my knives?”

“Because you’re very, very dangerous,” he admitted. “And I, well I’m not sure you won’t, um, stab someone. I don’t  _ like  _ it when people get stabbed.”

Loki huffed. “If I did, it’d serve them right.”

The Grandmaster laughed. Loki laughed a little too, if only because he was, and she didn’t want to be the odd one out. 

“Can I, um, can I kiss you?” The Grandmaster asked, blinking at her.

Loki froze up. Her brain broke. She started to back away. “Uuuuuuuuh.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he said immediately, backing up a little. “Totally, absolutely okay.”

Loki exhaled. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Alright,” the Grandmaster grinned.

“Maybe another time,” Loki said, and she  _ meant  _ it. That surprised her. “I’m just… not right now.”

“Alright, alright,” the Grandmaster said again. “Do you want me to go?”

“Please,” Loki said.

“Alright. Okay. Bye, have fun with your knives!”

He closed the door behind him, and Loki pulled out her knives. A reflection of her eyes, cold and green, stared back at her. She traced the edge of the blade with one finger, and the hidden inscription appeared on the metal. 

_ For Loki. May I always be there to protect you, and may these do the job when I can’t. Thor. _

_ (P.S.- you’re my favorite sibling.) _

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is witchlightsands my marvel sideblog is genderfluid-loki and i like making my fic titles unnecessarily long


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